10 Real Killers Who Disposed of Their Victims in Unconventional Ways

As terrifying as it is to accept, there are some pretty creative killers out there, who in addition to being crazy enough to murder people, are also clever enough to get away with it (at least for a while). Those who go unnoticed, free to roam and commit atrocities for a significant amount of time, are often those with unconventional body disposal methods. From acid baths to man-beef stew, killers have gone to every extreme to cover up their crimes.

Without a body, there is no evidence; without a body, there is no murder –at least as far as the law is concerned. Thankfully, every psychopath on this list eventually slipped up and got caught, but their evil acts went on far too long and most of them have their shocking body disposal methods to thank for every moment they spent free.

Adolfo Constanzo studied under a Haitian priest and became a professional warlock-for-hire and cult leader. He claimed to be clairvoyant and sold his services and worked spells for drug dealers and law enforcement officials throughout Mexico. The problem was, he also happened to be a murderer, and his potions and rituals called for random body parts to be boiled up in his cauldron. Yes, his cauldron. He’d fill it with things like scorpions, human brains, blood, and various organs to make his client's dreams come true.  

He also murdered seven members of a drug cartel he worked magic for after they refused to make him a full partner. He dumped them in the river missing random bits like ears, spines, a few hearts, and some fingers. It wasn’t until Constanzo and his cult kidnapped and mutilated an American college student that the Mexican government was pressured by the United States to solve these ritualistic murders. Police raided Constanzo's crazy wizard-cult ranch and found the remains of 15 people buried on the property, along with the brain of the missing student floating in Constanzo's cauldron.

Ed Gein is a unique case because actually killing his victims was far less interesting to him than the dead bodies themselves. He busied himself collecting the dead, not finding ways to hide bodies. While he did confess to murdering two people, his real fetish (for lack of a better word) was digging up dead bodies and using them for craft projects.

It’s believed it was his mother’s death that set him off. This real-life Norman Bates/Leatherface kept his mother’s dead body and then set off on a mission to create a "skin suit" of women’s corpses. After achieving that goal, he figured why stop there? He continued to collect corpses, making lampshades and chairs from skulls, dishes from bones, and even a belt and a doorbell out of nipples.    

Enriqueta Martí preyed on the children of Barcelona, Spain, back in 1912. She was a witch, cannibal, prostitute, and apparently pimped out the children she kidnapped from the streets as well. Any child she couldn’t sell (alive) was brutally murdered and turned into one of her crazy witch-doctor remedies. She would use every piece of her victims to make salves, potions, healing tonics... even the bones were ground down into medicinal powders that she would pedal on the streets as magic cure-alls. She was finally caught when a neighbor recognized a little girl from missing posters, peeking out from the witch’s window.  

Richard Chase was nicknamed "The Vampire of Sacramento" because he drank his victim’s blood and ate various organs and body parts. Prior to the consumption of humans, he was caught consuming homemade smoothies consisting of Coca-Cola and raw dead animals. He spent time in an institution but was released, and he changed his shake recipe to include human remains. In one month’s time, this lunatic raped, killed, and devoured six people back in 1977, two of whom were children. When he was finally apprehended, he told authorities that he had to consume blood to stay alive because Nazis were turning his blood into powder.  

William Bonin is believed to have murdered around 28 people, often hitchhikers. Between 1979 and 1980, he sexually assaulted and tortured his victims before strangling them to death with a cord or sometimes their own shirts. Two victims were killed with an ice-pick through their ears, and one was forced to drink hydrochloric acid. What did he decide to do with the bodies? He randomly scattered them across multiple freeways for reasons only a psychopath could possibly understand.

H.H. Holmes preyed on tourists in the Chicago area from the confines of his elaborate hotel, now known as the infamous "Murder Castle," back in 1893. He had various traps, body chutes, and sealed-off rooms to aid him in starving and torturing his patrons/victims. Once they were dead, they’d be sent down the chutes to pile up down in the basement where they’d be broken down, cleaned up, and made ready for sale for to various medical schools. The monster confessed to 27 murders but there were only nine confirmed victims. The rest couldn’t be found, and authorities have estimated his victim count was probably somewhere around 200.

Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, serial killer Robert Pickton was convicted of murdering anywhere between 6 and 49 women in 2007. Why the wide range of victims? Because they couldn’t find enough bodies to pin down an exact victim count. The only reason they have the number scale they do is because Pickton bragged about killing 49 women, wishing he had hit the 50 mark, to a cell mate that was actually an undercover cop. This psychotic multi-millionaire was also a pig farmer and he disposed of his victim’s bodies by feeding them to his pigs. There is also the possibility that some of his victim’s remains were ground up into pork that he sold to the public and gave away to family and friends.

John Haigh was described as a charming, well-dressed, and respectable man prior to his psychotic tendencies coming to light in the 1940s. Apparently, Haigh shot or bludgeoned people to death in his spare time, drank their blood, and then turned their bodies into sludge in a tub of sulfuric acid. His victims included his former boss, William McSwan, and his parents. He told the McSwans their son was drafted during WWII and that he'd left Haigh in charge of his estate - he even sent fake postcards to the couple. As the war drew to an end and William’s parents grew more concerned about their son’s whereabouts, Haigh decided to plunge them both into an acid bath as well.

He sold their belongings but gambled most of the money away. He shot a wealthy couple, Dr. Archibald and Rose Henderson, and a wealthy widow named Ms. Durand-Deacon, all for financial gain. His acid bath method wasn’t foolproof, though: after connecting the missing widow to Haigh and searching his home, police discovered her dentures and three gallstones remaining in his 40-gallon barrel.   

Dennis Nilsen was also known as the “British Jeffrey Dahmer,” due to his tendency to keep the bodies of his victims around for fear of being alone. Between 1978 and 1983, this necrophiliac and serial killer murdered at least 15 boys and young men, ranging from 14- to 30-years old. As if that weren’t bad enough, he liked to bathe and dress up the bodies, posing them throughout his home as if they were alive and just enjoyed his company so much they didn’t want to leave. He also stored bodies under his floorboards and burned them in a fire pit in his backyard when he felt they’d run their course.

It wasn’t until he moved to an upstairs flat with no storage beneath the floorboards and no backyard for a fire pit that he started cutting up and stuffing body parts down his drains. The entire plumbing system got backed up (obviously) and that’s how he was caught.

Leonarda Cianciulli was a fortune teller who murdered three women between 1939 and 1940 as sacrifices to keep her son safe after he enlisted in the Italian military. Faustina Setti, Francesca Soavi, and Virginia Cacioppo were all drugged, given wine, and then brutalized with an ax in Cianciulli’s home while visiting her for advice.

Her method of disposing of the bodies are just as cringe-worthy as the crimes themselves. She proudly admitted to having boiled all three women, adding various colognes to turn them into soaps that she gifted to her neighbors. She also explained her process for letting their blood coagulate so that she could mix it with eggs, milk, butter, and such, creating little tea cakes that she fed to the other ladies that came to visit her. She admitted to indulging in these disgusting creations herself, too.